It can't go without mentioning that the marginal cost of software development is ZERO, meaning it might cost you N dollars/euros/quatloos to build your first widget (the app), after which it costs nothing to copy it and serve the next one. At one time, you might have had to pay for distribution, but now you don't even have to do that for most stuff.

So here we have an industry with an infinite supply, heavy demand, a minimal barrier to entry, and zero marginal cost. I simply can't envision any circumstance in which prices aren't going to spiral down. Apple's walled garden does curate an experience that many devs and users are willing to pay for, but it will always have to find something to differentiate it from what you'll get for free. First shoe to drop, I suspect, will be the demise of the App Store fees charged to devs.

It's much more nuanced than that. The cost of actually selling digital goods is not zero. It can, sometimes, cost more than you make.

I love David Wong's article, but there's always going to be goods that are not digital. People will still take the money saved on digital crap, and buy physical crap. Nonetheless, bullshit does seem to be quite the growth industry.

Maestro. And this is the card that everybody can use with Google Wallet or Paypal or Amazon Paymebts or most other online transaction providers.

That is false. I made ample sure when I created a new account with a different bank to register for Google Wallet these last days.You can not use a standard (in this case german) EC card with Maestro logo on any checkout that specifically requires a credit card. Also these cards dont even have a card number like credit cards (those are just for identification and are shorter too), they only have your bank account number on it, which also has a different length (which is also different from bank to bank).

I heard of people in german online communities who got credit cards just for PSN... It's obvious that our ATM cards dont work.

That is false. I made ample sure when I created a new account with a different bank to register for Google Wallet these last days.You can not use a standard (in this case german) EC card with Maestro logo on any checkout that specifically requires a credit card.

I second this. At least with a german EC card, this isn't possible. My solution to this problem was to marry a woman who owns a credit card...

Ok, I agree that there are problems with the Debit/Credit systems, I've had issues trying to buy plane tickets from U.S. airlines because of that.

But let's not kid ourselves, the spending market is evolving, and payment methods will evolve with them. At best this is a temporary nuisance.

@sproingie:I agree. I think that even though the digital market will keep growing tremendously, physical purchases will never truly go away, since for all the patches and firmware upgrades in the world, we still can't get rid of those hoarding instincts we've had since before leopard loincloths.

Also, don't many games (Like Angry Birds, for example) make sickening amounts of money through merchandise?

On the long run, if you get a hit, it might be better to diversify and milk that brand recognition for all it's worth. After all, if you don't, someone else will step up and do it, royalty-free.

Well, exactly. It's actually nothing to do with credit cards whatsoever, or iTunes, Steam and Amazon would also fail. It's because piracy is trivial. I full agree with the sentiment and the tone of the article's rant. Much of this is down to bearded nerds* demanding configurability which the great unwashed does not give a flying feck about. You've only got to look at iOS to see the truth of the matter.

What bugs me most about piracy is not really the "stealing" of content...it's all of piss-poor self justification/entitlement excuses for doing so. If I doing anything that's illegal..I don't make excuses for doing so.

Also keep in mind that the effects of piracy aren't really that clear-cut.

Publishers like to use it as a scapegoat, but there still is no definite proof that pirated games equate to actual lost sales, and some indicators point that those sales wouldn't have been made at all if the game had been unpirateable.

Whatever the actual truth, the point is that we exist in the current market, and while it evolves around us, we need to adapt to it. Complaining about self-entitled dipships won't do much for the success of our projects.

Then again, mocking them is very satisfying, that's why I totally endorse copy-protection features that troll pirates.

The "bearded nerds" argument is a strawman, a hollow and lazy argument. Do you really think the millions and millions of android users are all the neckbeard set? Or even a significant majority?

You have the wrong end of the stick - it is the people in charge of Android who are compared to bearded nerds. They assume that everyone is like themselves (not on the face of it, unreasonably, as one has to start somewhere) and apply their ideas to the products they design.

On the other hand, I'd rather have bearded nerds make choices about the direction of technological advancements than, say, profit-minded executives who can't tell the difference between a tablet and a tea tray.

I have to say that most apps floating around in the market now aren't useful. We have a small percentage of niche apps that actually have some use. The reason the Android market is having a huge problem with piracy is because the only way to access apps is online. Also, since developers are flooding the market with applications, it is devaluing all the apps in general. When things lose value, people don't want to pay for them.

But just because people can get things for free doesn't always mean they'll always do it.

If you want an example, look at the console market. Slowly, they've been marketing to both online on offline play. For me, I prefer to pay for a hard-copy of a game, rather than a digital copy online even if it is the same game. Why? If a hacker went in my account, I lost my account information, or if the game system dies; I can rest assured and know in the future, there might be a way to play the game again.

The damper for apps is that everything is digital. If programming has taught me anything, is that digital is not synchronous with reliable. There are always loopholes, tricks, and exploits we can take in computer science. If I can't trust that my app will always be there, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions whether I should make a purchase.

I hate the fact though that he targeted Open Source. Honestly, open source has existed forever. It is called the library. The library rests on the shoulders of our respective governments the same way the internet rests on the shoulders of corporations.

Can online be profitable? Absolutely. Will everyone be able to profit from it? No way.

Just like everything in life, it requires hard work and a bit of luck. It is like television in where not every show is a big hit. But, the ones that do make it make a lot of money. You have to be in the right place at the right time. Like how Angry Birds hit the Apple Store at the right time to be super successful. You can't say that it would have had the same success if it were released on PC or the console market for its first showing .

@card-debate. Where I live everyone gets a card that has access to their account, unless it's an account made specifically for your money to stay there a few years at an awesome interest.

I think I got access via. card when I was like 14, and of course that's debit. I still have debit, and I'm not sure I know anyone who doesn't. If you have a bank account that you have access to, it's difficult not to have a debit card of some sort.

@androidI always thought that being able to install any app from anywhere on the internet was awesome. Freeware, and open-source that's heavily developed isn't always on the market. Emulators for instance.Of course this shouldn't be exploited, but I don't like the idea of just closing access to all the software you can find around the interwebs. If people don't want to publish through Google, that should be fine.

Maybe they should hide the flag a little better? Maybe a game should have to be activated by google servers once it's installed. I know some people will eventually break it, but that should filter out a great percentage.

The truth is that if the game is good, ppl will buy it for 10$,and if it is bad then no one even buy it for 0.1$..

Open source is good, but you need care so ppl not start create thousand of not quality products, from you’r code.But even in this case quality product find customers!!!!!(its simple takes more time so ppl find good product in mess of crap )

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@Icecore Actually I've got hard stats that prove, to me, that mostly what you're saying is not true.

When we have sales, we make a lot more money than we generally do any other time, by about a factor of 10-100x more. The precise pricing of a sale has a significant effect on the actual amount of money made. There are three factors at play: 1. is the game cheap enough to be considered so irrelevantly inexpensive it can be bought without a second thought? 2. is the actual pricing at a psychologically agreeable value (no 3's, under certain magic thresholds such as 5 or 10) 3. will the game become that much more expensive if I don't buy it in the sale that I will regret missing the opportunity.

Nail all three factors and boom! Lots of money. Price too cheap - not enough money. Price too expensive - people have second thoughts. Discount too low - meh, it should be cheaper or I don't feel I'm risking it. Etc.

Now. Consider yourself perhaps for being greedy sponging of the work of others without actually doing any work yourself to reward the rest of society. If everybody else who pays is working to earn their money and therefore contributing to society, then the game is their reward. What have you done to earn a reward? Nothing much. Just a parasite. Food for thought. How about you go and get a job.

I do not want to talk to people whose only aim to earn as much money as they can.

This sort of la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you doesn't really help. Of course I want to earn as much money as I can. I've got a family who depend on me. Why is that so hard to understand? I'm in it for the money. I'm just incredibly f**king lucky to really enjoy my job. Actually, not that's wrong, I'm not lucky at all - I worked my ass off for 39 years to get to where I am today. If you aren't motivated by money when you make your game, that's fine, you obviously don't need the money. But to then say you don't want to buy someone else's games because you're broke, that says you don't really give a shit about other people's efforts.

You cannot win this argument. Don't bother to justify it to anyone! "I pirate stuff, and I don't really care about how much effort you put into it or whether or not your kids are brought up in poverty or not." is all you have to say, and there's absolutely nothing anyone can really reply to that is there? But if you go on trying to justify it... it just causes arguments.

@RoquenI don’t write nothing wrong, many ppl before me write own experience about credit card, the only problem is that’s I don’t set smile smile like this , then all read it like a joke.

And the problem not in me I writ not my exclusive story, this is about millions ppl, in my country and same as shi.

Even if I have a good job, what will change their lives, as they have no money and no, they can not buy your mega cool games for 30$, the only chance to make their lives better, and somehow aside from the problems is use piracy,

then you say that piracy is bad, but it does more good and more help than a thousand of selfish companies.

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Mhm. I've pirated stuff (not very much tho ) but I've never tried to justify it. It is wrong, because that's someone else's hard work. If you have no money, who's fault is that? In America, usually it's your fault, but not always. But whether you caused yourself to be poor or not, if you're living in poverty, I don't think you would have the money to play even pirated videogames.

hehe piracy has killed the PC game market whether you like it or not. Just go to every bodies favorite pirate site and watch at the leacher count when i new game is released. Hits 100k+ most people will dl the game in a few days so that fact that for 1-2 weeks a game has 50k+ leachers means HUGE sales lost. And pricing is extremely important. Look at all those infomercials. 19.95$ "we will double our offer!!!" Why not just 20$? because 19.95$ sounds like a deal. .99$ sounds so cheap its like buying a $ burger except you may enjoy it longer. Sadly, today quality has little to do with it.

I tent to like the whole try before you buy idea as bioware has recently made a lot of shit games and I can't afford to blow 60$ to find out it is crap. I recently wasted 60$ on Diablo 3 believing all the hype and knowing that bliz normally makes great games. Sadly, 60$ flushed down the drain. But the fact still remains, I am taking someone's hard work without paying them for said work. It is wrong. I do not have the right to take their property whether it is in physical form or binary. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to justify stealing. There is nothing wrong with companies trying to make as much cash as they can.

at the latest when on-live like streaming will take over, pc gaming may become much more lucrative again

but it is already going up again, mostly due to steam and stuff like minecraft

my view on piracy is: its the developers fault. how that ? well, its possible to build a system that, even if the attacker knows everything, is still secure.Xbox 360 und PS3 both had hacks, BUT piracy on those platforms is not a big issue at all, because security was done largely right.

My claim: It is entirely possible to write "DRM" which will work PERFECTLY and never bothers legitimate customers.You could say that "always online" is one of those...I dont comment on how exactly it would be done, or how difficult it would be, just that it should be, scientifically possible somehow. figure out how -> profit.

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